Top Security Threats for 2013

Enterprises will realize that they are responsible for ensuring trust and will develop effective continuity and recovery plans. A series of security events that have taken place over the past couple of years have exposed that third-party trust providers are high-value targets for cyber criminals. Organizations know that certificate authorities (CAs) can be compromised and that these compromises can lead to devastating cyber attacks. With the assistance of NIST and other best practices available, businesses will start to plan for the inevitable.

Venafi, a market leader in enterprise key and certificate management (EKCM) solutions, recently released its cybersecurity and vulnerability predictions for 2013. At the top of its predictions list is that organized cyber criminals and hackers will leverage digital-certificate-based attacks to infect enterprise IT systems with state-developed malware such as Flame and Stuxnet. The results will impact business operations adversely, and could lead to data breaches and brand damage.

"Many pundits, leading media outlets and even some security experts are reporting that enterprises needn't be overly concerned about Flame and Stuxnet-style malware, citing the fact that they were executed by well-funded government intelligence and military groups whose targets were hostile nation-states and not businesses," said Venafi CEO Jeff Hudson. "However, our view is that companies should be concerned, as the tools and techniques used to execute these types of attacks are, unfortunately, now in the hands of common criminals and rogue entities. In the coming year, such attacks are likely to increase, especially against enterprises, and are likely to result in major data breaches, unplanned outages and significant disruptions to businesses."

Venafi bases its predictions on hard evidence, not conjecture. In 2012, Chevron (No. 3 in the Fortune 500 rankings) admitted that it had found the Stuxnet malware in its systems. Chevron has since publicly stated that it does not believe the U.S. government realizes how far and wide the malware has spread. Although reports indicate that the incident did not cause damage or result in data loss, it proves that digital-certificate-based attacks are no longer hypothetical or confined to state vs. state cyber war scenarios.

In addition to predicting increased trends in enterprise attacks, Venafi has also researched the overall enterprise security landscape and developed a number of other predictions highlighted in this slideshow.

To protect the company from those insiders who abuse their privileged access and from hackers with stolen credentials, many companies are turning to a privileged access management (PAM) solution. ... More >>

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